GPS woes no match for sweet music

Fronted by Marc-Antoine Robertson, septet SoHo Ghetto plays the Best Western Queens Room stage Thursday night. The Halifax indie band is nominated for Nova Scotia Music Awards for new artist and group recording of the year.

The Thursday night drive to Liverpool for Nova Scotia Music Week was dark and stormy, and a bit white-knuckle for a stretch under construction with no visible road markers or shoulders.

But eventually the inviting lights of the annual music industry event’s 2012 headquarters came into sight.

It took a bit longer than planned, after arguing with my GPS that White Point Beach Resort isn’t located in the town of Liverpool itself but rather 10 kilometres farther down the coast.

But the detour was minor compared with those of other attendees, like singer Bonnie Ste. Croix, who tweeted that her GPS had taken her halfway to Kejimkujik National Park before she figured something was amiss.

“It could have been worse, we once had a couple wind up in White Point, Cape Breton,” a desk clerk in the spaciously rebuilt main lodge informed me, and I felt foolish for relying on technology in the first place for my fourth trip to the historic South Shore vacation spot.

With my bearings more or less restored, it was time to hustle back the way I came and jump into some live music.

With many delegates not expected to appear until Friday, there were only a pair of showcases scheduled. One was the Yarmouth Metal Stage located in Alley 9 — named for its position adjacent to an eight-lane basement bowling alley — and a mixed-genre lineup at the new Best Western Plus Hotel, across from the equally brand-spanking new Queens Place Emera Centre, home of Sunday night’s gala Music Nova Scotia awards show.

But there would be miles of music to get through before the weekend’s congratulatory finale.

The first shot across the bow came from Halifax’s Like a Motorcycle at the smoke-filled Alley 9. The female power trio quickly erased my road rage with some crunchy power chords from guitarist Jillian Comeau, sweet vocals and beats from drummer Michelle Skelding and bassist Kim Carson’s hyperactive stage antics, including a few knee drops that will surely shorten the lifespan of her skinny jeans.

Just because the volume was lower in the Best Western’s Queens Room, the same can’t be said of the quality level, with sets by a number of Nova Scotia acts deemed, using a phrase well-known to those in the grant-writing process, “export ready.”

Just back from Iceland’s Airwaves Festival, Mo Kenney’s subtle folk sounds required an admonition to the chatty industry crowd, which brought it down to a dull roar, while charismatic Kayo’s joyous fusion of hip hop and Caribbean sounds, and Gypsophilia’s inventive cafe jazz, gave listeners and dancers a dose of second wind as the night was on the verge of coming to a close.

Queens Room listeners seemed especially drawn in by the sounds of two expansive Halifax indie bands, Paper Beat Scissors and SoHo Ghetto, whose songs are deeply poetic and are enriched by the current penchant for breaking away from the standard guitar-bass-drum dynamic.

Paper Beat Scissors included violin, euphonium and bassoon for this incarnation, but it’s clearly the vision of founder Tim Crabtree, just returned from a tour through Europe, that gives the songs their emotional charge.

Fronted by Marc-Antoine Robertson, septet SoHo Ghetto shows its mettle with a strong performance honed by rehearsing and recent touring, demonstrating how it earned Music Nova Scotia Award nominations for new artist and group recording of the year for the EP Humble Beginnings Make for Good Night Life.

During a lunch break between Music Nova Scotia’s Mind Over Music conference sessions Friday, Robertson also expressed his enthusiasm for being chosen to perform at Sunday’s awards gala and getting to share the stage with his never-there roommate, top nominee and non-stop touring machine Rich Aucoin.

“We’ve been granted 31/2 minutes to create an epic moment, that’s how we’re treating it, and it’s epic for us to be asked to be part of the most important showcase for this community of musicians in Nova Scotia,” Robertson says.

“Being asked means you’ve worked really hard over the past year to earn your spot in the show, or in the case of the Barra MacNeils, you’ve had this incredible 25-year career that’s being recognized.”

About to embark on another trip through Ontario, SoHo Ghetto could have been used as an example of what to do right at one of Friday’s more entertaining conference seminars, titled No One Owes You Sh**!, hosted by the Red Tentacle agency’s Josh Hogan and Hassan King.

Essentially it boiled down to common sense notions like “Don’t be boring,” “Don’t be unprofessional” and “Be good to your fans,” but it’s amazing how many musical careers are stopped cold when these simple rules are ignored.

The seminar earned the stamp of approval of Halifax Pop Explosion director Jonny Stevens, who declared it “The best music industry talk I’ve ever heard.”

After another full night of music around Liverpool on Friday night, Nova Scotia Music Week’s showcase series closes tonight with another solid rock bill at Alley 9 including Alert the Medic and Gloryhound, a broad range of pop and hip hop at the Best Western and some of the region’s brightest songwriters at Lane’s Privateer Inn.

Back at White Point, the African Nova Scotian Music Association holds Black Vibes II at Lakeside Hall, and the Jost Vineyards Stage features roots, rock, dance and hip hop with the Stanfields, the Town Heroes and AA Wallace.